Freya:- (Nordic)- Goddess of love, beauty, fertility, war, wealth, divination and magic. Her name comes from the ancient Norse word for lady or mistress. There are several variations of the spelling of this goddess name.
Working on a large canvas whilst creating a pointillism image, is not as easy as i thought it would be. It is very time consuming. And is taking me longer than i originally anticipated. This is because the individual dots are created from droplets. The process of dripping the paint from the brush onto the canvas means that gravity plays a big part in my work. Which means the canvas cannot be placed vertical to be worked on. Restricting the position means that the canvas must be laid on the floor and sections are done at different periods of time so that it can be built up and the dots are not smudged.
Placing these two images beside each other in my studio space allowed me to preview them properly against a white space. This way i could conduct a proper assessment. The image on the right with the dark background didn’t portray what i wanted to get across. People where getting confused because they thought my canvases where about a muscular women and a man. This is not what i wanted. I had to make a harsh decision to change my focus and came to the conclusion that instead of looking at extreme muscular female forms, i should be focusing on more flattering images of muscular women to assist my subject matter. Women can still look beautiful and be socially accepted as women regardless of there “manly muscles”.
Due to this decision i took down the darker canvas and re-painted it in magnolia emulsion ready to start again with a different image.
With regards to the image on Canvas i intend to keep it was suggested by one of the tutors that i painted in the hand of he female nude as it looks like i am being reluctant in my images to escape the hands, and i should display that i can do them and am not avoiding them. So i took this advice on and started to paint it in.
Continuing to use images that i have appropriated online. I primed my second canvas with magnolia emulsion. Secondly i sketched the basic outline of me image onto the canvas. Using a small paint brush i started to shade in little areas using a free flowing motion. The reason for this is i want the areas to be delicate. I don’t want them to be bold and dominate. As i want my subject to represent this, rather than the paint. I still want to keep aspects of the females delicacy.
Throughout my blog I have tried to come up with witty titles for my posts. And with the degree show coming up soon, I didn’t want to leave my titles to the last minute. I want them to mean something. Looking back through old sketch books and dissertations it gave me the incentive to continue with traditional paintings portrayals of the female nude and make then relevant to my work.
Traditionally paintings of the female nudes were not given real identifiable names. This was because they were representations of what the male perception of beauty was. An indulgent of what society perceived to be the ideal beauty. Generally, these images of women were considered mythical. Given the Title of a goddess i.e. the Virgin Mary or Venus. Painted with smooth porcelain like skin, and a perfectly framed figure, angelic faces, small breasts and no bodily hair, the ultimate purity of a woman. These paintings were accepted on the basis that they were unidentifiable as real women. But if the woman in the painting resembled any individualization of a real person, the painting would be frowned upon, and rejected by society. Such images were discriminated and considered vulgar because the audience could relate to, or identify the woman.
The women I am creating are considered to be unreal. Sociality does not see them as real women because they do not compel with the norm. Virgin Mary and Venus are a little dated and have been used excessively.
Next step was to researching the name Venus and Mary revelled that the name stems from names of goddesses. Widening this search revealed a variation of ancient cultures.
Now that I have a starting point and meanings behind my titles that relate to my work I could concentrate on creating my images and referring back to the names once complete to decide which Goddess name best represents my image.
